News / Events

Across Western Australia, Indigenous fire management practices and cultural burning principles are becoming more widely recognised and included in fire management regimes. In the state’s southeast, the Esperance Tjaltjraak Native Title Aboriginal Corporation is working with stakeholders to bring cultural burning principles to the forefront of bushfire management.

The Warrwa and Nyikina native title holders have been formally recognised as traditional owners after the Federal Court endorsed three determinations of native title. The Warrwa and Nyikina traditional owners are now recognised as having both exclusive and non-exclusive native title rights and interests over approximately 8,874 square kilometres of land and waters in the north-west Kimberley region. 

It has been a long journey from the High Court’s Mabo decision in June 1992 that gave rise to native title for Indigenous Australians and rendered terra nullius a legal fiction. The release on Saturday of an interim report on an Indigenous voice to give the nation’s 800,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people a stronger input to government on issues that affect them is a further important step.

Premier and Minister for Indigenous Affairs Steven Marshall granted Kelaray, a subsidiary of Argonaut Resources, the ability to complete mineral exploration at the lake with consideration to environmental guidelines. The approval was a granted between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. Lake Torrens, despite being a sacred site, does not have Native Title protections. Despite having multiple claims to the site, a 2016 court case determined that no Aboriginal group would have their Native Title rights recognised.

Yanunijarra Aboriginal Corporation’s Ngurrara Rangers are working alongside Traditional Owners to care for Ngurrara Country through their fire management plan. The Ngurrara rangers care for Ngurrara Country which includes Warlu Jilajaa Jumu Indigenous protected area and the Great Sandy Desert. It is one of the biggest Native Title claims in the nation.

Aboriginal trainees can now live near where they work or train thanks to the leasing of five State Government dwellings in Kununurra. The three houses and two units will enable the Yawoorroong Miriuwung Gajerrong Yirrgeb Noong Dawang Aboriginal Corporation (MG Corporation) to accommodate up to 10 trainees and apprentices.

A Native Title holder has been asked to remove his dwelling from his Native Title land, which the local council said in a Notice to Remove was public land, a claim that the local Prescribed Body Corporate disputes. Patrick Green is Bunuba man from the Kimberly region of Western Australia, near the Martuwarra/Fitzroy River. He recently decided to move out of the town and get back onto Country, settling on a patch of land about five kilometres west of Fitzroy Crossing, with sea containers and small sheds as dwellings.

A new native title agreement is set to deliver economic benefits for the Gascoyne region’s Yinggarda people and the local horticultural industry. The agreement will support the Yinggarda people in planning for their economic future and protect culturally significant areas.